Equality, diversity and human rights

The Council is committed to ensuring that it treats everyone who lives, works and visits our dignity and respect.

We're also committed to:

  • equality of opportunity
  • tackling discrimination
  • tackling harassment and intimidation
  • promoting good relations through the district

We have a leading role to play in promoting equal opportunity and valuing diversity in the community, as an employer and as a provider of services to the people within the district and it's visitors.

Our approach to equality and diversity is one of common sense, bringing people into the heart of everything the Council does. Our approach puts people, both our customers and our staff at the heart of what we do and forms the platform for our transparent and fair decision making and service provision.

Read our full Equality and Diversity Strategy 2021 - 2023 (PDF File, 1,207kb)

Public sector equality duty

The Equality Act 2010 places specific duties on public authorities to:

  • eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation
  • advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not share it

The duties the Act places on us as a local authority encourage us to continually examine our practices and policies, ensuring all our residents and service users are treated equally.

We celebrate many special equality awareness days each year

Equal pay and measuring the gender pay gap

Equal Pay deals with the pay difference between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value. The Gender Pay Gap is different to equal pay and looks at the average earnings for both males and females to see whether there is a disparity.

Find out more about the gender pay gap, including our latest report, on our Transparency page.